Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin
Sparing you the worst since 1969
Mikester 
…that should be more like “!!!!!!!!!!!” after a declaration to the effect of “THE DEAD ARE AMONG US DECORATING TREES!!!!!!!!!!! AIEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!! AND DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON SANTA CLAUS THERE!!!!!!!!!!!”
Anyway, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, or even just Happy Sunday…whatever it is and however you like to celebrate it, I certainly hope it’s good for you.
So I finished watching Suicide Squad the other night while I was also wrapping Christmas presents, and thus I wasn’t completely wasting my time. I posted some brief reactions to the film on Twitter, and pal Andrew said in response to my negative review:
…And that’s fair enough. I admittedly am not the most critical of film-goers (“Frank Miller’s The Spirit!” everyone shouts at me in unison), and I usually can eke out some value from nearly any movie, even if as a whole I realize it’s kinda lousy. And I realize this may be the kind of out-there crazy talk that none of you will be willing to buy, but sometimes a bad movie can be fun, and you can immerse yourself in it and sympathize with the characters and be invested in the plot even as all the while the more rational part of your brain whispers to you “this ain’t good.”
Suicide Squad ain’t that kind of movie. It’s mostly just bad, with a jumble of characters and scenes and a whole lot of shouting and running around and you don’t really care about any of it. Like Avengers: Age of Ultron, the film depends on the concept of “here are a bunch of comic book characters on the screen together” to do the heavy lifting, without realizing that what was once novelty is now old hat, and you need a little more sauce than that to keep interest up.
Among the annoyances: characters develop some form of camaraderie not really through anything you see in the movie, but mostly because at one point it’s necessary to move the action along. The animated on-screen “bios” for the Squad members is supposed to come across as irreverent and wacky, but simply feel forced and pandering. And the Joker…now, everything I’ve heard prior to seeing the movie seemed to imply that there was a lot less Joker in the film than anyone expected. Frankly, I felt like there was too much Joker in the film…a little of him went a long way, and this much of him went too long.
Not to say there weren’t bits that I could have enjoyed. I thought Will Smith as Deadshot and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn fit the roles well, and did what they could with what they were given. Jokes fell flat, emotional development fell flat, dialogue just kinda hung out there to dry…the one bit I’ll give ’em is the idea that Deadshot’s daughter is totally aware of what her dad does for a living, and just deals with it. I also liked the creepy visuals of the Enchantress, and at first thought she’d be my favorite character in the movie until the rest of the film dissuaded me from that particular notion by turning her into another Big Glowy Bad Guy for the “heroes” to defeat.
I also liked seeing Ben Affleck’s Batman again, and I even enjoyed the 3 seconds or so of the Flash that we got.
But overall…Suicide Squad didn’t do it for me. I understand there’s an Extended Cut (the Netflix rental I saw is, I think, just the theatrical version), but I don’t know if the extra material provides some of the necessary connective material to flesh out the film, or it’s just more stuff to pile onto the mess that’s already there. There are a lot of pieces present that could be beaten into a good, or at least watchable, film…we’ll see what happens when the sequel shows up.
ITEM!
I received a certain item in the mail this week…that item being the Blu-ray disc of the Suicide Squad movie from Netflix, which I never made it out to the theater for. Not sure when I’m going to make room in the schedule for it, what with Christmas looming in the very near future and me with shopping and wrapping to do still. (I haven’t even made it out to the new Star Wars movie, which makes the Ghost of 8-Year-Old Mike loom over me and shake his head in disapproval.) Anyway, I’ve been curious about the film, even though I’ve heard only generally negative things about it from other comic folks…but then again, I’m the Guy Who Liked Batman V Superman so maybe I’ll be more favorably inclined toward it. I will say that my initial reaction to trailers and stills is that it appears all dirty and grimy and sickly and yeccchh so the movie may have a struggle overcoming my visceral negative response to its looks.
TIME!
Yes, I did watch the first episode of the new Justice League Action cartoon, and yes indeedy, it does contain the Swamp Thing/Plastic Man team-up the world has been clamoring for. Also featured: an all-ages appropriate John Constantine, who is more British than approximately 10 British men in, at least, this initial installment. There’s a story reason given for his particular style of dialogue, but I hope that’s how he’s portrayed consistently in the series because it’s hilarious…and probably can be read as a critique of how folks can kind of go overboard writing his dialogue in the comics.
Anyway, I had a hard time pulling a still of Swampy from any of the clips I saw online, so here’s a link to the trailer where the timestamp should take you directly to Swamp Thing getting clobbered by Solomon Grundy. Not his most dignified moment.
MITE!
So a while back I mentioned in a footnote to this post that the above comic book, Superboy #208 from April 1975, was the first comic book I ever read featuring the Legion of Super-Heroes. Now, I don’t recall if I read this when it was new (which would be probably January or February 1975, given the usual difference between cover dates and the actual release dates) and I was five years old, or if my original copy was purchased from a used book store a bit later, when I was around, say, seven years old.
Either way, I was quite the young fellow when I was exposed to that weird-ass story where Lightning Lad stepped out of a spaceship left foot first, bad luck on his planet, and ended up losing an arm because of said bad luck! Okay, things weren’t quite what they seemed, but still, that stuck in my head for years, along with several other images and bits of dialogue from this issue that floated around in my brain. I’d long since lost my original copy, but picked up a replacement sometime later at my previous place of employment.
Now, at my current place of employment (being Sterling Silver Comics, located in the heart of lovely Camarillo, CA), I bought another collection of 1970s comics that was heavy on the Superman and Superboy comics. And in this collection was yet another copy of Superboy #208 (said copy scanned and posted above). As I was processing the collection, I did what I sometimes like to do with old comics and glance at the letters page, looking for missives from future comic creators, customers of mine from either shop (more common that you’d think!), or letters from around my local area. I never recalled doing this with my own copy of #208, so I went ahead and checked this copy, and wouldn’t you know it, there’s a letter from someone from my own hometown:
…and that’s pretty neat an’ all, but I started thinking. As I recall, perhaps not every letter that appeared in these old comics were, shall we say, on the up-and-up. As in, “not actually written and sent in by real readers.” Whether it was just to fill up space, or to lead into a plug for other comics, or whatever, sometimes there was a little fudging of the truth in those letter columns. (I don’t know if the practice continues today, though in the ’90s a pal had a letter printed in a particular superhero comic that was edited from being critical to being quite praising, so there were still shenanigans of some sort going on.)
Anyway, this only comes to mind because two of the main drags in Oxnard, California are “Rose Avenue” and “Gonzales Road,” which actually intersect not too far from where I’m living now. Now, “Rose Gonzales” is hardly a rare or unusual name or anything, but that certainly seemed like quite the coincidence, like someone needed a name to attach to a letter (or a seeming excerpt from a letter), whipped out the Book o’Maps, picked “Oxnard” for the letter writer’s city, and picked out a couple street names to comprise the name as a gag. (I regularly spot letters with “Oxnard” or nearby “Ventura” addresses in ’60s and ’70s comics, so I imagine the city names were at least somewhat familiar to some editors.)
Now I have no idea if that’s what happened…granted, seems like a lot of work just to create authenticity for a line or two of inconsequential text to fill space in a layout. Could just as easily been “Mary Smith of New York” and it’s not like anyone was going to check. And I certainly can’t check now, as anyone involved in the editorial process here is either, um, departed, or not going to want to take any calls from a dude asking about 40-year-old letter columns they don’t remember.
I just thought it was an oddly interesting thing to note in this old comic that I have strong nostalgic feelings for…that now has an even stronger connection with its ties, real or spurious, to my hometown.
…Well, okay, perhaps that quote from Star Wars Episode IV: Remember When There Was Just the One Movie is overstating things a bit, but it was kind of odd to have my former boss Ralph from the previous place of employment come to my shop and fill in for me for most of this Thursday. Yes, I was my old boss’s boss for part of a day, and yes, that seemed strange. But it was quite nice of him to step in, as I was attending funeral services for my girlfriend’s mother at that time. He reported that there were more than a few shocked faces after walking into my store that day and seeing him behind the counter…some folks hadn’t seen Ralph in years got to catch up with him again! (And he’s still selling comics, but just doesn’t own a store, so it’s not like I handed the keys over to a competing shop or anything.) (Or did I? Dun-dun-DUNNNN.)
Anyway, I’ve had a long Thursday, and a long week in general, I’m pretty wiped out, so I’m putting a cap on this week here at Progressive Ruin Industries. I’ll let the batteries refresh over the weekend and I’ll be back in fightin’ trim on Monday.
Though, just so there’s some actual Star Warsian content to justify the title of this post, there’s a couple of things that came up on Twitter last night that I’d been thinking about for a while, and wanted to pose to you folks.
1. It seems like (to me anyway) it’s only a matter of time before Marvel starts mixing the Star Wars license with the regular Marvel Universe. I mean, beyond special variant covers…I’m talking actual comic book stories like Super-Villain Team-up with Darth Vader and Magneto or a Vision/R2D2 crossover or something. How likely do you think that’ll happen?
2. I believe that within my lifetime, I will see an official Star Wars/Star Trek crossover of some sort…probably in the comics, maybe in a novel, almost certainly not in live action. Now, with Disney having dumped four billion smackers into the franchise, there’s almost certainly no need for Star Wars to “team up” with anything, as the films don’t need any sort of gimmicky sales boost, beyond the gimmicky sales boost of being a Star Wars movie. But I think all it takes is one or two or a half-dozen box office crashing turkeys to drive either property to such desperate measures. Star Trek certainly hasn’t been shy about crossing over with other company’s properties, so it feels like that side of the deal wouldn’t say “no.” Think this will happen? In my lifetime? In any of our lifetimes? In the far-flung fuuuuuture?
…so let me present this pic I’d put up on the Twitter the other day, after finding it in a comic I was pricing at the shop:
…that comic being New Gods #13 (1977), where Gerry Conway, Don Newton and Dan Adkins tried to continue from where Jack Kirby left off. As was pointed out by other Twittering folks, those are quite the choices for representative disco performers. KC and the Sunshine Band, sure; Rick Dees and “Disco Duck,” well…I mean, why not, that’s as much of the era as anything else.
I’ve never really had much exposure to these post-Kirby New Gods comics…it’s a weird alternate universe divergence from Kirby’s particular and peculiar vision, but still it’s hard to complain about some nice Don Newton art. Even if everything is just slightly off-model from what we know, which is easy to forgive as, at the time, the Fourth World stuff was only a few years old, not having the decades to burrow into fandom’s collective heads like it’s had now.
The morning of Saturday, December 10th, my girlfriend Nora’s mother, Asuncion, passed away at the age of 79 after an extended struggle with pulmonary fibrosis. She was surrounded by family at the time, chatting and joking up with them up until the end, when she simply closed her eyes, took a couple of final breaths, and departed.
She was the much-beloved matriarch of the family, and spent a lifetime raising, caring for, and sharing her love with her many children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She will be greatly missed. If you can, please spare a brief thought for both her and those who grieve her loss.
Big news is that Rick Veitch has released a new installment of Roarin’ Rick’s Rare Bit Fiends as a print-on-demand book via Amazon…I ordered that sucker as soon as the news hit my feed reader on Monday, and had a copy in my hands by Wednesday. Unfortunately whoever packed my copy didn’t do a great job of it, and it showed up damaged. I should have a hopefully undamaged replacement arriving around the time you’re reading this, assuming you’re reading this sometime in the morning or early afternoon on Friday, December 9th, 2016. However, flipping through it was a welcome return to Veitch’s dream diaries, and I hope we see more installments of Rare Bit Fiends in the future. You can order it here, and you can take a gander at some sample pages on Veitch’s site.
I also keep meaning to order his other print-on-demand book Super Catchy. Maybe after I’m done with the Christmas shopping, which I should probably start someday.
UPDATE: A copy in more acceptable condition was delivered today…after being initially delivered to another address. Ah well, at least I got it eventually.
Other comics this week:
Flintstones #6 continues its bizarrely dark take on the Hanna Barbera characters, which is a phrase that in most cases would rightly send you running in the other direction, but here that “dark take” works absolutely marvelously. The social satire, the horrible lives of the animal-appliances, poor old lonely Mr. Slate, the pitch-black humor, all working together to make what may be my favorite comic on the stands right now. I never would have imagined that would be the case when these HB relaunches were announced way back when, but man, I love this comic.
Star Wars: Doctor Aphra brings to the Star Wars comic franchise something desperately needed: some measure of unpredictability. I’ve been enjoying all of Marvel’s new Star Wars books so far, but despite the twists and turns of each storyline, we know where the main characters end up, as the majority of the books take place between Episodes IV and V. Aphra is new to the comics, a supporting character from the Darth Vader series, who has her own original-to-the-comics supporting cast accompanying her, so the characters aren’t restricted to specific paths. I mean, not to say the creators haven’t been doing a good job telling stories with Luke, Han and Leia in this period…perhaps a better way of saying this is that with Aphra, we have a new character that is fresh to us, for whom we don’t know her eventual fate, which makes her story perhaps a little more compelling. Plus, her supporting cast is basically Star Trek’s Mirror Universe of other familiar members of the Star Wars family, with Evil Artoo, Threepio, and Chewbacca analogues, all of whom are a lot of fun.
Now if this paves the way for the eventual Jaxxon solo series, that would be the best.
So with Reggie and Me #1, this makes the second of the Archie relaunches to be narrated by a dog, I believe? Which is fine…it gives us a sympathetic outsider’s view of Reggie’s life, which this first issue is devoted to setting up. Not so much a story as a character sketch, it establishes his mostly adversarial relationships vis-à-vis the rest of the Archie Universe. One of the main appeals of Reggie in the original Archie comics is that he may be a jerk, but he’s a funny jerk…it’s funny to watch him be a giant ego monster and eventually (at least sometimes) get his comeuppance. The Revamp Reggie with its slightly more (and please pardon the expression, particularly in a comic with a dog narrator) “realistic” young-adult bent doesn’t really have a lot of laughs, particularly when compared to the classic Reggie comic presented as a back-up in this issue. I did like the comic, but I hope the mood does lighten a little in future issues.
It’s the lucky 13th anniversary for this ridiculous website of mine, where I’m still blogging about comics after all this time, long past the point of everyone running out of patience for people who blog about comics. But here I am anyway, still doing it and not planning to stop anytime soon, at least until the meteor finally strikes or the medication kicks in, whichever comes first.
Seriously, though, thanks to all of you out there who are still finding enough value on my site to come back day after day and see what I’ve managed to type up this time. I really do appreciate your readership. And thanks of course to the usual suspects, like my family who supported my comic book habit (and later my comic-selling career), my girlfriend Nora, pal Dorian, my fellow comics bloggers both still standing and emeritus, and as always, thanks to Comics Blogger Supreme Neilalien for leading the way. I also wanted to give special notice to a couple of swell cats: Tim O’Neil, who’s a good pal and has been undergoing some significant life changes this year; and Bully the Little Bull Stuffed with Wonderment and his pal John, both of whom we are very fortunate to have around.
This past year has been going along mostly smoothly, despite losing my grandmother in January, which was very sad, but she did have 96 full years of life and was active and out and about up until nearly the very end. As I mentioned in that linked post, she was thrilled to pieces that I finally had a store of my own and loved telling me how happy she was she got to visit it.
Speaking of the store, Sterling Silver Comics had its second anniversary last month, with hopefully many more anniversaries to come in the future. The business is doing well, I’m paying myself and my bills and building stock and clientele, so I seem to be doing okay. I do tend to complain about the vagaries of the comics industry both here and on the Twitterers, but that’s just venting…I’m happy to be where I’m at, and only wish I’d made the move sooner.
Another big change this year is that I set up a Patreon account for this site, so if any of you happen to have a spare dollar or two a month that you’d care to contribute in support of the work I do here, I’d be most appreciative and it would help out a lot.
I also had to get a new vehicle this year as the old truck finally gave up the ghost, so have I mentioned my Patreon account, ha ha, you know, just asking for no reason.
Speaking of Twitter, as I was just prior to the above begging, I’ve been active there as I have every year since first joining back in 2007. Free free to follow me there if you’d like, but here are a few highlights (or lowlights, depending on your particular opinion of my “humor”) from the past few months:
Usually I’ll post about the comics retail life, such as when this realization set in:
Or when a most fortuitous event occurs:
Once in a while I have to remind myself to have some perspective:
But sometimes it’s hard when faced with a public that can hate and fear the very idea of funnybook sellin’:
Sometimes my perspective veers off in the opposite direction:
But there are still plenty of moments at the store that make it all worth it:
Then I’m pulled back down again:
And it wasn’t all just retail talk on the Twitters…sometimes I gave insightful film commentary:
And then I made everyone sad with this observation (though the way things are going, maybe we’ll get this as a comic book):
Once in a while I’ll talk about actual comics:
…And the people who make them:
…And once in a while, I’ll ruminate upon the very idea of comics blogging:
As evidence for that last tweet, here are some of the notable posts (i.e. about 95% of them) on Ye Olde Progressive Ruine from the past twelve months:
DECEMBER 2015
The return of “Another Moment with Cap and the Falcon,” my interview re: the Star Wars Early Bird Kit, remember back when we weren’t sick of too many Star Wars movies, how quickly the pre-Crisis DC Universe started returning post-Crisis, comics for Christmas.
JANUARY 2016
I think I must have bumped my head before writing this New Year’s Day entry, the other RadioTiki guys read this entry on their show, “You Can’t Pin A Medal on a Gorilla” by request, my grandmother, we look back at your predictions for 2015 (1 2 3 4 5 6) (and oh Lordy that means it’s almost time for me to do it again).
FEBRUARY 2016
As I write this the last issue of this series has been cancelled and not yet resolicited, just couldn’t make it through the original Supergirl movie, hey did you know people don’t like high comic prices, I’m about 99% sure this Superboy scene was homaged on the Supergirl TV show a few weeks back, I wonder how much longer we’re going to have the “Rebirth” banners on the covers, this is what I would do if I ran an EEEE-VIL comic book store.
MARCH 2016
The new Swamp Thing mini-series was okay I guess, that Deadpool card in X-Force #1 will never be worth anything, remember when Honey Bunny Mania raged across the country, I was a little disappointed I didn’t get 47 responses on my 47th birthday post, have some Captain America Logo you stinkin’ Ratzis, Behold Superman’s Brother, this whole “DC’s revealing Joker’s Real Name!?!?” post is pretty much moot, I know I’ve been at this too long when the comics start talking back to me.
APRIL 2016
Thank God I know people who actually know graphic design, THE HATE CUPIDS, Free Comic Book Day plans and a Batman/Superman movies – two tastes that go great together, there’s a sneaky joke for my older readers in the title there, he was a regular prince I tells ya, back in the day we’d ping your Veronica with my gopher and that’s how we liked it, one of the ways I helped Rich with that book (more on the book later), my shocking realizations about ordering the funnybooks, oh don’t mind me I’m just trolling along.
MAY 2016
The connection of the Marvel Handbook to my secret origin, Batman Vs. Jaime Hernandez Vs. My Dad on Free Comic Book Day, more FCBD pics and I disagree with a famous cartoonist, more post-FCBD talk, so long Darwyn, just what is up with the internet and comics anyways, what finally defeated the Legion of Super-Heroes (which inspired a pal and irritated a comics writer), boy people couldn’t wait to be the first to spoil this comic, still need to get a copy of Freaked for myself.
JUNE 2016
I always called them “comic subs” but apparently nobody else did, DC Rebirth sales are still driving me nuts, so long Champ, we talk about The Greatest Single Issue of a Comic Book of All Time, they finally got me reading Flash again and also BTW I was right about Wacky Raceland, the (oh Lordy) collectibilty of newstand vs. direct sales comics, there are some comics I could point out where the error was even doing them in the first place, pal Andrew discusses his favorite Swamp Thing story at my request, so anyway about those Charlton heroes, I’m still trying to single-handedly kill the comics blogosphere, speaking of — I see Marvel is listing a Guardians of the Galaxy movie adaptation in this month’s Previews, I love 1970s Popeye comic books, ELECTRO-ROBOT HAND, on anthologies and alternate Swamp Things.
JULY 2016
Needlepoint Joker, I’ve since decided this is now my favorite comic book, in a strange way I miss the black and white boom, more b&w boom comics, one more post on the topic, BREAST. JOKE. EVER, I finally make it into Overstreet, the fun of funnybook ordering, so long Jack, Richard and Jerry.
AUGUST 2016
A brief appreciation of the current Superman titles, so long Gaspar, yet another follow-up to the b&w boom posts, big money out in the swamps these days, I’m finally dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, some BIG BIG SCANS of cover credits, the whole Watchmen-in-the-DC-Universe thing still tickles the hell outta me, I talk about a couple of direct-to-DVD Bat-cartoons, I go deep — almost too deep — into Swamp Thing Continuity Talk, I straight up review one of those Batman direct-to-DVD flicks, Ditko + Wrightson = AMAZING.
SEPTEMBER 2016
So long Tim, some nice 1970s Frank Thorne art, a hard 1990s Marvel retailing flashback, what if I went on too long about the What If comic, TUROK TALK parts one and two (and two-and-a-half courtesy commenter John), more fun 1970s Atlas Comics art, I am both proud and ashamed of this Superman cartoon gag, Googling up “skateboard tricks” sure came in handy for this post.
OCTOBER 2016
The missing Swamp Thing stories, my completely unbiased positive review for a book I helped with a little, so here’s the Thing, I may be cheap but I ain’t free, some comics are worth a lot but probably not yours, so long Steve, the weird and unfortunate legacy of Jack Chick.
NOVEMBER 2016
This is a strange calendar, come to think of it I haven’t gone back to that DC game, I review the other Batman direct-to-home-video cartoon I mentioned a while back, here’s to you drive-by dude who dropped by the comments of this post to be offended and never actually read my site before or since, I’ve only made it partway through this mountain of Star Wars/Trek toys since this post, even more about old Star Wars toys, I’m the only person who thinks the subject line of this post about the Joker TPB is funny, try to remember the things you should be thankful for, somewhat related to a joke I made a long time ago about how skeptics would have a hard time in a universe where Aquaman is the King of Atlantis.
DECEMBER 2016
And just because of the way things were timed this month, all I have to list here is the latest End of Civilization post, which is as good of a place as any to remind you that I’m back to doing monthly EoCs after an extended break somehow caused by opening my store. Plus, I did some comics reviews over the past year, and I also threw in a couple Sluggo Saturdays, too.
Again, thanks to all of you for sticking with me all this time, for reading my site and leaving comments and even occasionally stopping by my store to say “hello” in person — that all means so very much to me, and I can’t tell you enough how greatly it’s appreciated.
For reading all that, here’s a picture of 13-year-old me with my grandparents’ tortoise while it’s eating a bunch of flowers:
That is some real “that kid from The Walking Dead” hair I’m sporting.
Thanks, and I’ll see you all again in a couple of days.